Friend and Guardian
by ZeldaPotter29
Summary: A series of one-shots between Link and an OC character named Eliza, a young gamer and nerd who travels to Hyrule whenever Link needs her most. Eliza is largely based on myself. Friendship may morph into romance, I will decide as I continue to write these pieces. Rated T because of my slight language.
1. Chapter 1

It was only the beginning of the Shadow Temple and Link was already scared out of his mind. The place was crawling with the living dead that kept paralyzing him with their trademark shriek that chilled him to the bone, making him wonder whether the paralysis was because of the scream or because of his fear. The temple was dark, cold, unknown, and seemingly unending, with disturbing things like iron shackles dangling on the walls, giant guillotines that were fully capable of coming down and slashing him in half like a butter knife, and red stains on the walls that looked a lot like blood. The whole ordeal was overwhelming for the adult/child hero. The darkness scared him, and there seemed to be no light anywhere to save him from it. He sank to the ground in a corner of the room on the floor of skulls and drew his knees up to his chest, his head in his arms.

He was supposed to be the hero, but he felt anything but. He was scared out of his mind; he could feel his entire body shaking uncontrollably. He wanted to give up. He wanted to curl up and disappear from this nightmare.

He wished more than anything to get out of here.

For a long time there was no sound except the steady dripping of water from the ceiling, the sound echoing eerily off the walls, and the occasional sniffle from Link. He could practically feel the shadows closing in around him, making him feel small and helpless.

Then suddenly, there was a crack, loud in the penetrating silence, and a tall silhouette appeared on the other side of the tunnel. It was slightly rounded at the chest and back, female, but young, possibly around teen years. There was a soft click and a beacon of light appeared and began bobbing towards him. He could see the beam focused on the ground, showing that the dark ground was made of the skeletons of all those who had failed to pass though alive. The silhouette screeched in fear at the sight and the light jumped back. The yelp was rather high in pitch; he was correct in assuming the figure was female. The light turned forward and focused on Link, causing a sharp intake of breath from the figure. He moved an elbow in front of his face, shielding his eyes from the bright light she wielded.

"Link?" The voice sounded familiar.

Link sat bolt upright, his eyes widening as the girl walked closer to him, the light from the device in her hand bouncing off the dark wall behind him, lighting her face, bringing her into view. He knew this girl. She was the one who lived in the 'other world.' What did she call it? Amrisha? No, _America_. Her world of which she sometimes spoke was far more advanced than that of Hyrule. The people looked quite different as well; no pointed ears and strange clothes just to point out a few. She looked different than she had last time he had seen her. She wore light blue jeans (why did the girls wear pants? It was weird, it was rather unexpected for a respectable woman of Hyrule to wear pants.), and a shirt that read: 'my patronus is a bookworm,' whatever a patronus was. (See? They really were weird.) Her long, dark brown curly hair was pulled back by a black headband. In her hand was the beam of light controlled by a small device. He tried to remember what she called it, oh yeah! Flashlight.

"Elizabeth." He whispered. His voice shook slightly, as he'd been crying before she had appeared.

Elizabeth slid down the wall to sit next to Link placing the flashlight on the ground so that it's beam faced away from them and out into the dark void. She put a hand on his shoulder. "It's going to be ok Link."

"No Eliza, it's not." Link's voice was quiet but full of angry ferocity. He looked up at her with those deep, sea blue eyes, full of anguish and frustration. "I feel so stupid. I'm supposed to be the hero!" He cried desperately, then his tone softened dejectedly, "But heroes aren't supposed to be scared, they're supposed to be brave." He scoffed sadly, "Who would have thought it. The hero of Hyrule. Scared of the dark." He hung his head in shame.

"Link. Stop." Eliza's words were soft and showed no power, just comfort. He stopped. She reached out a hand, touching the side of his face. "Look at me."

Reluctantly, Link raised his head to look at her, a stray tear trickling down against his will.

Her burnette hair seemed to further magnify the deep blue of her eyes as they stared into his own cerulean ones. She enveloped him in a comforting hug. "Just because you're scared doesn't mean you aren't brave. It's ok to be scared."

"But I thought being brave meant you weren't scared." Link was confused.

"Courage is not the absence of fear, it's the knowledge that something else is more important than that fear. Knowing this, heroes push their fear aside for that."

 _She listens to Sheik too much, now she's talking like Nayru,_ Link thought.

She pulled back to look at him again, "What do you fight for?"

"Zelda."

"Not just Zelda, who else would you do anything to keep safe?"

"Saria, Navi, Sheik, the other Kokiri."

Eliza nodded encouragingly. "See? You can do it."

Link still looked doubtful.

Eliza drew closer. "Link, on the outside, you are seventeen, but inside," She pressed her pointer finger into the right side of his chest, "you're still ten years old. You were forced to age, but the only thing that changed was your body. Your mind is still ten years old. That whole time travel thing is so unfair, and I'm sorry that you have to carry this burden. It's ok for things like this to affect you. You've seen more things than any ten year old has ever seen, more than most adults have seen for that matter. And do you know what?"

"What?"

"I'm scared of the dark too. Those Redeads scare me too."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Then why did you come to me when you're afraid of those things?"

"Because I'm not the hero, you are. You needed someone to keep you going so I just closed my eyes and entered your world again."

"You don't look very scared right now. You said you were afraid of the dark." Link said in an accusatory tone.

Elisa nodded, "And I am. You're right. But you know what helps me to not be scared?"

"What?"

"If I know that there is someone in the darkness with me, I know I'm not alone, so I won't be vulnerable. I know they will protect me. And I will protect you."

She stood.

"We'll protect each other. Come on. We'll go together." She extended a hand towards Link for him to take. He hesitated, then took it, letting her pull him to his feet.

"Now, let's get out of this goddess-forsaken temple." She smiled at Link. He managed a weak one in return and together they walked into the heart of the Shadow Temple.

Eliza was right. With her by his side, Link wasn't as scared anymore

 **Hey guys! This is one of the many stories that I have been working on at the same time as Chained Warrior. Like I said, Eliza is largely based off of myself, in both appearence and personality. She is slightly braver than I am in real life tho, because when it comes to facing monsters, I would likely run for it if one showed up on my front lawn.**

 **I know, I sort of started the story in the middle where Link and Eliza had already met. The story where they meet may come later when I come up with it. These one-shots will be mostly in order, but not all the time. I will try to keep them in order as best as I can tho, so as not to make all of you guys confused as heck. Yes, they are in the Shadow Temple. REDEADS AH!**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Like Stones

The day was warm and cloudless, and it seemed that all who dwelled within it had not a care in the world. The birds sang in the trees and the clear crystal waters of Lake Hylia sparkled in the morning sunlight.

The perfect silence was disturbed by two teenagers standing on the water's edge, laughing merrily together. One was a girl with curly brown hair and blue eyes the other was a boy in green with pointed ears, his eyes laughing in silent amusement at his friend's antics. He picked up a stone and threw it, making it skip twice on the water's surface. "No, it's more like this." He explained.

The girl stooped down, grabbing another rock and said, "So… Like that?" She threw the rock with a little bit of spin on its side, but the rock just splashed into the water without jumping.

The boy looked back at her making a so-so motion with his hand, "Eeeeh, _no_."

The girl laughed good-naturedly at the pointedness of the 'no.' She picked up another stone and tried again. The mirror-like water was disturbed with a small splash, creating perfect rings traveling forever outward on its surface.

"Ah!" She growled in mock frustration, "I can't get it Link!"

The boy, Link, brought back his wrist, flicking it so that his stone bounced off the water like a little frog before disappearing into its watery depths after the sixth skip. He cocked is head in her direction, a smile of slight amusement on his face at his friend's attempt. "Here Eliza, I'll show you again."

He walked to Eliza's side and put an arm around her waist, pushing her down gently, "So, you bend over a little, like this, but to the side a bit. There you go!" He smiled at her correct form. He picked up a relatively flat stone and shifted it from one side to the other in his hand from palm to palm, weighing it, then handed it to her, picking up another rock of his own.

"It's easier to start out with flatter rocks. Now," he bent down like Eliza was, "You just hold it like this, no like this." He reached over, placing his hand on hers, correcting it, before returning to his own stone. "You want to hold it at a slight angle, slightly downwards. Not that much. There you go! Now you just pull back a little and flick the wrist. Like you're throwing a discus, or a free-bee."

Eliza's lips twitched slightly into a smile as she focused on the water before her, "It's called a Frisbee, Link."

The tips of Link's pointed ears turned a slightly darker tinge in embarrassment. The shift in color was so subtle that if you weren't looking for it you wouldn't have noticed. He waved his hand in the air as if to shove it off, "Whatever."

Eliza smiled at him. She turned to the water and threw the stone just how he had told her to. To her delight, the rock glanced off the water once before plopping into the clear pool. "I did it!"

"Yeah! That's one!" Link slapped her playfully on the shoulder, "See if you can get two!"

Eliza giggled happily at her accomplishment before bending down to pick up a stone from the endless supply of rounded pebbles at their feet. Upon grabbing one, her smile disappeared, her expression becoming serious as she regarded the stone lying innocently on her palm. She traced the smooth edge of the stone with one finger, rubbing against the rounded edge, worn by the rushing water. "The God of my world once said something about stones." Her gaze was far off and distant.

Link threw another stone, then looked back up at her. "What did He say?"

"Well, it was more like one of his disciples, Peter. Peter said that we are all living stones."

Link cocked his head, his ears perking up slightly in confusion, giving him the look of a bewildered puppy. "Huh?"

"We are used by God. We are like his building blocks so that we may act in his image."

Link gave a long, quiet 'oooooohh' of understanding.

"He also said that we all carry an invisible burden on our shoulders. Like a bag of stones. Each stone represents our regrets, grieves, and sin. And when we go before God, we dump the stones away and are freed from them."

She took the stone and threw it at the lake. This time she managed to make it skip two times before it sank. "If you skip these stones, like now, you don't let them sink and you hold on to them, in the forefront of the mind and let them torture you. But," She bent down, scooping up another stone and chucking it so that it fell unceremoniously with a splash into the water, creating more rings on its surface, sinking down below to join its rocky brothers. "If you throw it like this and let it fall, it sinks. And when it sinks, it leaves you, and you are free."

She handed a stone to Link, looking deep into his cobalt eyes. "Remember a sad memory that you wish to cast off, and throw the stone and let the worries of it fly with the stone. Away."

Link nodded and closed his eyes for a moment, selecting a memory. His eyebrows knit together temporarily in anger at the sudden remembrance, perhaps of a battle he had fought, before he grasped the stone in his fist and threw it as hard as he could, far out into the lake. Elizabeth heard a splash and some of the water flew up far in the distance before settling. Link turned to her, grinning, "That was surprisingly satisfying."

Eliza couldn't help but smile back. She bent over, searching the ground for the perfect stone to match a memory. After a few seconds, she straightened up with a medium sized stone in her hand. It was pearly white, with a dark crack down the middle. She turned it thrice in hand, regarding it sadly before walking to Link's side, showing him the stone in her hand, pointing at one of the sections of the rock that was separated by the crack. "This half represents me."

She pointed to the other half, "And this is my brother."

Link watched closely, listening, sensing a story coming on.

Eliza took a deep breath. "My brother and I were once really close; pure, happy in each other's presence, like siblings should be. Joined, like this stone. But then one day, that all changed."

She looked sadly out to sea, a couple of strands of her curly brown hair blowing across her face in the breeze like the winds of time. "One day he just shut me out. He shut us all out. He changed. He was quiet, he rarely smiled, and he was mean to me like he never had been mean to me before."

She winced slightly in remembrance, "I remember how he used to grab me by the arm if I didn't listen to him or do what he wanted." She rubbed at her forearm as if his hand was still there, clamping down on her, imprisoning her like a shackle. "He had a really strong grip from training at the climbing wall with the rest of his climbing wall team, so it really hurt. Both physically and mentally."

Link was horrified; he couldn't fathom how such a nice girl like Eliza would have such a cruel person for a sibling. It seemed almost against genetics.

"Sometimes when he was angry," she paused for a moment, then whispered, "he'd slap me in the face." Her grip on the stone tightened, her palms turning pale from the pressure.

Link gasped sharply, opening his mouth to speak, but Eliza shook her head, "It was all right though, I always forgave him. But it seemed that he never really forgave me back."

She sighed, "I could never count on him to return the favor. I was as nice to him as I could be, but he was just as mean and snarky as ever, but over time, I grew used to it."

Link was stupefied, _how could you get used to that?_

"Then, this year, my parents made a strange discovery." She looked away from the lake looking Link straight in the eyes, "He'd been diagnosed with depression."

Link's eyes widened in understanding, so that was why her brother had changed. It was his depression.

"He started to take some pills to make it better. He never again was the same eleven-year-old boy that I once knew, but that good part of him had at least started to poke its head out again. A smile was a rare spectacle on his face once, but now, he does it far more often. But it still feels surreal. Like I will somehow wake up in my bed, no longer fourteen, still a confused nine-year-old girl, with my older brother locked in his room again. He still locks his door, but he no longer shuts us out as much as he used to, and his eyes can laugh again. And," Elizabeth paused, thinking, her eyebrows knitting slightly, squinting her eyes a little, then shrugging, "I wouldn't exactly say that he is _nice_ to me, but he doesn't act like a complete asshole either."

She turned her gaze to the stone in her hand again, her pointer finger tracing along the black crack that ruined the perfection of the surface of the stone, "This crack, like the relationship between me and my brother, runs long and deep, breaking us apart. Cracks can fade, but they can never disappear fully. Neither do memories. My memories of what my brother did to me will never go away, forever tainting the other memories of my life with him. But I do my best to make that crack fade as much as it can. This weight on my shoulders is made up of more stones than I can ever count, but one day, they will all be gone."

She looked back out to sea, "I do not know when that day will be. It might take months, it might take years, I might even have to continue trying even after I have passed from this life, but I will not give up on him." A sad tear trickled down, landing on the rock in her palm, distortedly reflecting the sunlight. "I promise you that."

Link took her free hand in his and squeezed it reassuringly, "You will do it one day, Eliza. You can do it. You _will._ "

She smiled gratefully at her Hylian friend.

Link returned the smile then grabbed the wrist of her right hand, which held the white stone. "Now come on, let's let this one go. Together."

Eliza clenched her fist tightly around the rock, her already pale knuckles turning white, and brought her hand back over her shoulder and let the stone fly, Link still holding her by the wrist, adding his strength to the throw. The rock flew through the morning mist and disappeared, landing somewhere beyond their sight.

Eliza sighed, her eyes closed. When she opened them again, Link was looking down at her, a look of sad, compassionate understanding on his angular face. He smiled and held out his hand for her to grasp. She looked down at his extended hand, then back up at him, a thankful smile slowly starting to form on her downturned lips, then took it.

Link's smile widened and he guided her, hand and hand, away from Lake Hylia towards the forest. At his side, he felt Eliza squeeze his hand before saying quietly with a sort of relieved finality to her tone. "Another check on the calendar, another stone in the river." She felt like the luckiest person alive to have a friend like Link.

After a long silence she spoke up again, "Link, I know you quite well now, but you never told me of your past."

Link tensed beside her, his hand clenching hers, cutting off her circulation.

She pressed on, "I know that it must be a sensitive subject and I won't press you to. But if…" She pausing, thinking on how to word it, "If you ever feel the need to talk to someone about anything, anything at all, I will be here." She smiled up at him and he shot a tentative grin in return. She pointed back with her free hand towards from whence they hand come, "And so will the river."

 **Yeah… So, lots of symbolism for this chapter. A lot. SYMBOLISTIC OVERLOAD! Yes, I am a Christian, but I am not overly religious or anything, I was just applying my religion to this to make it deeper. No, I don't think there are actual stones on our backs, its just figurative. Yes, my older brother can be unkind to me sometimes, but not to such an extent like in the story. All siblings fight, and that's that. I just wanted a bit of a tragic backstory going there and I got it I guess.**

 **Ah! I'm getting far to serious in this one! This is not me! I'm getting too philosophical! I'm not usually like this, but I have these weird spikes where I start talking like Dumbledore or Gandalf or Nayru or… (Insert generic wise old mentor here) but yeah, you get my point.**

 **Did I do a good job?**

 **Plz Review! Critiques are much appreciated!**


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